Transcript:
Robert: I welcome you with all my heart. It’s good to see you again. Those of you who are new, welcome. I confess to you that I am not the body-mind phenomena. That I am eternal spirit. When I use the pronoun I, I refer to omnipresence. I’m not talking of myself, personally. I’m speaking of the universal, I. So whenever I use that pronoun, this is what I refer to, and so when I make a confession I’m not talking about Robert. I’m talking about every sentient creature on this earth. I am absolute reality. I am birthless, deathless and do not disappear. I am eternal bliss, no beginning and no end. I am that I am. I am pure intelligence, always available, omniscient, omnipotent, residing in everything. I am that, sat-chit-ananda. All knowledge, existence, bliss. I am Nirvana. I am emptiness. And because I am that, all is well. There are no problems. Nothing is wrong. There is no creation. Nothing has ever been created. I am that eternal something that has always existed from the beginning, exists now and will always exist. All is well. No problems. No anxiety. Peace, harmony, love, bliss, I am that. (tape break) I get a few phone calls from different people all over the world. Basically they ask the same questions. How do I solve my problems and how do I become self-realized? And that’s a funny question to me. It’s like a person standing in the middle of the ocean, asking for water. Self-realization is your very nature. You are already that, but because we are attached to maya, we are earthbound. We use discrimination and we believe everything we see is real. Because of this, because we believe the body is real, the mind is real, it becomes like the clouds hiding the sun. You do not say there is no sun, you wait for the clouds to dissipate and the sun shines again in all its glory and splendor. You are Divine. You are a radiant being of light. Only the clouds of ignorance appear have to fallen upon you and so do you believe you are human. You believe you have problems. You believe you need enlightenment. You think something is wrong someplace. But I say to you that there are no mistakes. No mistakes have ever been made. No mistakes are being made. No mistakes will ever be made. Everything is right just the way it is. Everything is beautiful. Everything is God. Everything is absolute intelligence, absolute reality, parabrahman. That is what you are. That is your real nature. How did we get lost? Again one way is by reading too much. There are so many books. So much to read, we become confused. We do not know which path to follow. We get involved in all kinds of pseudo-religious cults and this causes us to go down, as it were, until we can really find ourselves again. Reading is only for motivation. Be careful what you read. There are too many books. If you speak to those people who have really become enlightened, you will find that they hardly ever read at all. May be a couple of books but what they did, was the sadhana, the spiritual practices required. They worked on themselves consistently, constantly, 24 hours a day. How bad do you want realization? This is determined by what you do. If you’re more interested in entertainment, TV, parties, drinking, going out a lot, spending time with the idiot friends, what do you expect? You get out of life what you put into it. If you’re really looking for enlightenment in this incarnation, before you leave your body it’s possible, but you have to do certain things, and through investigation, we have found that the fastest way for the average person to feel the urge for enlightenment is to sit in satsang. It tells you this in the Upanishads. Only those who sit in satsang will achieve the final goal. This means you do not even have to read. You do not have to practice meditation, formally. All you have to do is sit in Satsang and things begin to happen of their own accord. You automatically start inquiring yourself. You begin to investigate. It happens spontaneously. Now this is an important point. Most people read books, Advaita Vedanta, Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, whatever and they see what they did, but yet they do not do anything like that themselves. They never inquire. They read the books and they obtain intellectual knowledge, mind knowledge, head knowledge. If they have a good memory they can quote passages, remember phraseologies, certain clichés, certain sayings, but they never have the experience. The experience only comes when you have complete humility. When you just let go of yourself, your little self. When you stop worrying about yourself. Stop thinking of your little self so much. Stop saying, “I need this and I need that,” and “I’ve got to become this, and I got to get this.” Give up all desire. Give up all attachments to person, place or thing. Relax. Make your life very simple. Sit in silence, investigate. Find out who has problems. Find out who feels depressed. Find out who is not enlightened and you will laugh. For you are a radiant light in a world of darkness. You are divine. You are a wonderful being. Never criticize yourself. Never put yourself down. Think of yourself as God and act the part. I give you this information so that you can do something with yourself, something practical. I give you the three vehicles that cross the ocean of samsarra to the land of selfrealization. But you have to use the vehicles. You have to work with them day after day. When you first get out of bed. When you first open your eyes. And these vehicles begin to make sense to you after you practice the four principles that I shared with you. The First Vehicle is this: You have a strong desire to be alone. This doesn’t mean you become antisocial. It means that you have to make the time to be alone. For instance, yesterday morning before 10 o’clock, I got three phone calls, invitations to go here, to go there, to go to a movie, to go to this place, but I declined. I was all by myself in the house. I sat down and looked at the trees and before you knew it, it was five o’clock, but I was filled with bliss, filled with joy, filled with happiness, which never goes away, anyway. There’s a time to be by yourself and there’s a time to be with people. But those who really want to become enlightened, have to make the time to be by themselves. So they can think of the four principles. They can inquire, “Where does the mind come from? Who thinks these thoughts?” Watch the thoughts, watch what they’re doing to you, observe them, do not react to them, but ask, “To whom do they come,” and realize they come to you. “Who are you? Who am I?” and as you follow the I thread to its source, there will be perfect peace in your life. Many people say, “Is a path like this practical?” and I always answer what do you mean by practical. Is your life right now practical? You have no idea, I say, what life is all about. You have no idea whether you’re living or dead, you just exist. Find out who exists? Discover who you are. As far as practicality is concerned, as you discover who you are your humanhood seems to increase and become better, because the vibrations you’re putting into your image-body, that appears to be real for you, is of a higher vibration and life becomes easier for you. You stop struggling. You stop reacting. You simply exist and like a divine magnet, you seem to attract everything you need in your life. But this only happens when you’re truly on the path. Everything is supplied at the right time. The right people come into your life at the right time. The right things always happen. But you have loving kindness for all things. Your temper, your ego, your emotions have subsided. You no longer become angry at things that don’t go your way. Because you realize you have no way. You no longer try to make God into your image and believe God is Santa Claus and you ask God for gifts or to have mercy on your soul. You realize all that God is you are. And you inquire within yourself, “To whom comes this emotion? To whom comes these questions?” This begging to God for things, “To whom does it come?” You will realize in time it’s your ego and it will happen by itself. Something will tell you, your ego has to be annihilated, removed, destroyed. You do this through self-inquiry, “Who has an ego? Where did it come from? Who gave it birth?” You will come up with your own answers and the answers are never the solution. But you come up with answers to help your humanhood. Things unfold properly, in the right way. There’s nothing to fight. Nothing to change. Everything happens by itself. And the question many people ask, “How can things happen by themselves? How can that be?” Well, when you understand who you are, you realize, that which you call your body, has been programmed before you were born. When you first came into this body, everything was already mapped out for you. What the body was going to become. Where you’re going to end up. Even the day of your the so-called death of the body, it is all mapped out, everything is mapped out and nothing changes. So why worry? Again, this doesn’t mean that you’ve got license to do whatever you want. As I said previously, you have to have loving kindness for all. Humility, mercy, you always have to remember, “I am my brother and my brother is me.” What’s good for you is good for your friends and your relatives and everybody else. Do not separate yourself from anything. Everything is one. Not only human beings but animals, minerals, vegetables, it is all one. However you treat anything, you’re really treating yourself. The whole world is a looking glass for you. And what you see is what you get. So what do you see? This is why it is so often. I am merely a mirror for you. When you see me, you’re seeing yourself. The question is therefore, “What are you seeing, what kind of self are you seeing?” If you’re seeing something ugly, something negative, you have to work on yourself. Do not try to change other people. Do not try to change your circumstances. If you get rid of one set of circumstances, another one of the same nature will pop up later. You can’t get rid of yourself until you change yourself. You have to work on yourself all the time and above all you’ve got to have patience. Patience is the key, especially when you’re practicing this path. You must have a lot of patience. Do not ask when. Live each moment as it comes, in beauty and joy. One day you will be awaken and you will be surprised and you will laugh hysterically, but patience is the key. It’s like the story of the two frogs, who lived in a milk factory outside in the woods, a fat frog and a skinny frog. One day they inadvertently jumped into a milk vat and they couldn’t get out. And the fat frog said, “Brother frog we’ve been paddling like this for a long time, we’ll never get out of here, I guess we’re doomed to die.” And the thin frog said, “Brother frog, have hope, have faith, keep paddling something will happen, somebody will rescue us, never give up.” So they kept paddling for a few hours and they still couldn’t get out, and the fat frog said, “Brother frog this is the end, I’m getting tired, it’s hopeless. I see no rescue coming, it is impossible, there’s no way out.” And the skinny frog said, “Brother frog, do not give up hope, keep paddling, don’t think about it, just paddle something will happen, something will give, we’ll be rescued.” So he paddled a couple more hours and the fat frog said, “Brother frog, you don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no hope, this is the end. I’m going to give up.” And he stopped paddling and sank in the milk and drowned. But the thin frog kept paddling without thinking. After a while he felt something solid beneath him. He had churned the milk into butter and he was able to hop out of the vat. And this is like us. We see no hope. We think it’s the end. Nobody loves us. We have incurable diseases. We have no job. The world looks like it’s coming to an end. There are wars. Man’s inhumanity to man. And we don’t know when it’s going to end, but for whom is this? For you? Find out for whom is all this destruction. For whom is the negative conditions? Not for you, because you are not your body. As long as you believe that you are your body, then the world becomes very real to you. As long as you believe you are your mind, then your thoughts will frighten you, scare you and make you do strange things. Will make you hate people, be suspicious, be doubtful. You’ll have all kinds of problems. But when you inquire, “For whom is the mind? For whom is the body?” everything stops. You see, the substratum of all existence is bliss. That’s the bottom line, simply speaking. The substratum of all existence is bliss. You come from bliss and you go to bliss. It is your real nature. It’s like you’re watching a movie and in the movie, there are good people and bad people and all kinds of people, yet you watch. You do not get involved in the movie, even though you’re watching the movie, you know that it’ll have an end and you’ll awaken from the movie and you’ll get up and go home. Life is like that. Life is a cosmic movie. Things begin, things have a middle, things have an end. Everything changes, changes continuously. Nothing is ever the same and it pulls you in. It pulls you into what we call maya, into the grand illusion. It makes you believe that life is virtuous and interesting and gets you enmeshed in certain things of this world. Until you become totally involved and when you become totally involved, you see it turns out to what you didn’t expect. It’s different to what you thought. Then you go after something else and you go after something else, it never ends. Until you become so discouraged you don’t know what to do with yourself. This is true of every human being, everybody. So what to do? Take timeout by yourself, think about these things. That’s the first vessel. Be alone, be happy to be by yourself, where you’re not disturbed. For it’s only by being by yourself that you can think of these things and take control of your mind and your body. Spend lots of time by yourself. Being by yourself is not loneliness, when you understand what you’re doing. Begin to love to be by yourself. You can’t wait for the time that you can be alone. Number two the Second Vessel: Is love to be in satsang. Satsang literally means, to sit at the feet of the Master with an empty mind, not with preconceived ideas. Not with doubts. Not with a fighting spirit, but with an open heart. Love for satsang leads to enlightenment. But you have to be careful in this world, to whom you go, where you go. They have so many movements, so many organizations, so many pseudo-spiritual groups that it’s hard to decide where to go. The best way to know, is to ask yourself, be by yourself. If you are sincere, if you have been working on yourself diligently, something in you will lead you to the right place. Where you can grow and unfold beautifully. Vehicle Number Three: You have to have a desire to associate with people on the path like yourself, your friends. To associate with Sages, with people who think like you. Who are trying to unfold. It’s easy for the world to pull you down. You can associate with the wrong people and they look very interesting to you. They pull you down into maya and then you have to start all over again, to work your way up. You’ve got to be careful, you’ve got to be aware where you go. With whom you hang around. Let your heart tell you. Those are the three vessels. Now we’ll play some music. (Music played) Satsang is usually where I don’t talk as much as I usually do here. Where we ask questions about spiritual life. And I know you have questions about the path and about what I was talking about, generally about anything and this is where we get a chance to find out what really is going on. Because if you don’t ask, you will never know. So feel free to ask questions at this time. Anything you would like me to expound on, to talk about or whatever you feel inside. Nerada? SN: Second principle: I have a deep feeling that you’re never born. R: That you are unborn, you do not persist and you do not disappear. (SN: When you say that you do not persist?) It means your life between so-called birth and death does not exist. (SN: Does not exist? Okay and trying to reconcile that with, when we were doing the meditation, “I exist.”) “I exist.” When I’m referring to, you do not exist, I mean you do not exist as an entity as a person. (SN: So “I exist” is just self-inquiry to find out who exists?) Exactly. (SN: And when you say, I do not persist, I do not persist as an ego entity.) As an ego entity doing all kinds of things in the world (SN: But I persist as the Self?) The Self is. (SN: Persistence?) Persistence is the ego. (SN: But the Self is ??? thinking.) In other words what I’m trying to say is this, it appears that you are real the way you are, but science has proven that nothing is the way it appears. Think for a minute, if you were the size of an atom and you found yourself in my body. Would I be a body? Do you know how small an atom is? And if you found yourself in my body, every cell of my body would be the equivalent distance of the Earth to the Moon and to Mars and all the planets. There would be cells and as an atom you would be able to look up and see a universe like you do now and that would be my body or your body or anybody’s body. So as you can see you are not what you appear to be. It is your senses that fool you. It is your ego-mind that tells you that you are a body and you look this way and you have to eat and drink and you get older and you die. It’s a lie! But as long as we collectively believe in it, the lie becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. So when you are working on yourself with the principles and this is the second principle: you have a deep feeling, a deep realization, that you are unborn. There was no time that you were born. And you prove this again by realizing, who gave you birth? Your parents. Who gave them birth? Their parents and you go back all the way. Now when you go back to the end what do you get? Nothing. Who is the first person that lived? If you believe in the biblical tale, you believe in Adam and Eve, but that’s nonsense that’s a fairy tale for children. You just appear just like in a dream. When you dream do you dream about Adam and Eve giving birth to the human race? Of course not. The dream just begins in the middle as it appears, like everything is already here. This life that you call real is the same as a dream only longer. Everything just appears because of your mind and everything keeps appearing because of your mind. When the mind is transcended everything stops and you wake up. Just like waking up from a dream. So you have to understand that you were never born. You do not have a life that appears to be real, just an appearance, a dream. And you do not disappear in the end, you do not die, because there is no place to go, since you are omnipresence itself. But do not allow this to confound you. Keep it simple within yourself. Let the message go deep into your subconscious. And you will know the truth by yourself, not intellectually, but you will become a living embodiment of the truth involved and you will become free. What seems to confuse some people is sometimes I intermix absolute terms with relative terms. I talk about the self as human and the Self as divine. There is really one Self, but for discussion to take place, we have to divide it to show you that your human self is not real but your real Self is real. So do not become confused. SS: You mention about reading and that you could do it for motivation and for inspirational words. It lifts me out of maya somehow. (R: For a while.) For a while, it’s temporary, yes. R: Well it’s like people smoking grass, it lifts them up for a little bit, makes them feel high, but then they drop down again. And then they’ve got to get stronger grass and stronger grass, ganja and the best stuff they can buy and then they’ve got to switch to cocaine, to get a more high. Books are the same way. (SS: But then would you think that not reading at all is better.) Sometimes, if you have a class like this to go to, read very little. SS: Joel Goldsmith and Paramahansa Yogananda, are those paths or those readings in conflict with what we’re talking about here? R: There’s only a conflict when there is not realization. When there is a realization there is no conflict. (SS: Well then there’s conflict at this point.) (laughs) See a real Sage never writes too much or hardly anything. Every stage that I have met in India or elsewhere, Buddhists, Indian or whatever was not well read. It is only after they attained enlightenment that people gave them books. And they started to confirm their own experiences. So after your enlightened you can look at anything it doesn’t affect you any longer because you know who you are. But before that you are very impressionable, you get pulled into the wrong teachings. Joel Goldsmith and Yogananda are good teachings but you’ve got to be careful. It’s better to sit by yourself and argue with yourself, yell at yourself and investigate yourself, find yourself, work with yourself, spend more time doing that than reading. Somebody gave me three books during the month and I’ve been trying to get to them but I can’t. Because like yesterday morning I was telling you I was by myself all day. I opened a book and I read a passage or a sentence or a paragraph and I get blissed out and I’ve got to put the book down and get lost in consciousness. But to read and read and read is not too healthy, you’ve got to be careful. SS: Was Yogananda and like Joel Goldsmith were they realized beings or not? R: Who is to say? I can’t go into things like that, it doesn’t matter. What matters is your life, your enlightenment. When you’re in a burning building you do not stop to admire the pictures on the wall. You get out of the building as fast as you can. So when you’re engulfed in maya do not take the time to watch everything. And say this is interesting and that’s interesting and I’ll go here and I’ll go there. Work on yourself, diligently, before you leave your body in this life. So you will not have to come back again and you will be free. No matter where we are, no matter what we think of ourselves, we can always work on ourselves. There’s no one who can not work on themselves because you exist and as long as you exist you… (break in tape as Robert continues) …and watch and work with yourself. Something will give, something will happen, wait and see. But you’ve got to do it, do not waste any time. SS: Relax with it I guess. I thought if one say loses their job, then there’s this hole and automatically we go and try to fill that hole often times don’t we? R: Sure we do. You have to stop thinking of yourself so much. (SS: You have to let the holes be?) Let everything be, stop fighting. Merge into it, become one with it. Do not fight. Do not try to change anything. But merely look at yourself, observe yourself, find out who you are and everything else will take care of itself. (SS: So you should love the nothingness. Enjoy that space of nothingness?) Well don’t enjoy the space, like you say, due to the fact that you enjoy it as an ego. Don’t do that. Don’t love and don’t hate. Leave it alone. Just watch, become observant. Watch the feelings, watch the thoughts, watch how you act, observe yourself and see what happens. That’s how it begins and as you keep observing yourself, all of the negative conditions will begin to diminish and you will start to feel a peace that you never had before. You will feel a joy, a peace that’s beyond comprehension. (SS: Do we sometimes get afraid and we try and hold onto those things, is that what happens?) Well of course, but you must ask ourselves before that happens, “Who fears? To whom do those feelings come?” (SS: Like I’m losing my identity.) Who is? Ask yourself, whatever you feel ask yourself. All the answers are within yourself. SS: A thought came up while coming here. How we want to hang on to certain identities and I thought that going to satsang, is that trying to fill a space? How is that different? R: It isn’t any different, but you have to ask yourself, “Where do these thoughts come from? Where do these feelings and emotions come from that tell me this? Where did it arrive? How did it get here? To whom do they come? Who is bothered by them?” That’s how you go about it. Whatever happens you ask yourself the same question, “To whom does it come? What gave it birth? How did I get this feeling?” And when you do that for a while your heart will take you to the right place and you will know what you have to do. Trust your Self. Think of yourself as a divine person. Forget about the old you. Lift yourself up and worship your Self. (SS: You mentioned positive thinking at one time.) Well positive thinking is better than negative thinking. When you practice self-inquiry your thinking patterns begin to change automatically. So you don’t have to worry about that. (SS: So you don’t practice either positive or negative.) No you don’t. (SS: But if you catch yourself in negative thinking?) Ask yourself, “To whom does it come?” That’s all you’ve got to do. SS: You’ve mentioned positive thinking some time, right? I don’t know if it was when I talked to you on the phone? R: Well I did that because there are some people that just can’t practice self-inquiry. So they have to do the next best. You have to do whatever you have to do. But self-inquiry is the fastest and best way to get rid of yourself and become aware of who you are. SG: I’m just curious, what do you think about. I mean as an alternative, just sitting in the silence. Is that as fast as self-inquiry or it depends on the person? R: It depends on the person. Silence is the best way. But when we speak of silence it’s not really silence, it’s bliss. We just use that word. (SG: Not silence but…) Just like emptiness. (SG: Not even that, it’s just…) It’s not really emptiness. (SG: …you can’t describe it.) But you have to be sure that you’re sitting in the right silence. That’s why self-inquiry is better because it brings you to silence in the right way. (SG: Right. If the silence is not silence, but it’s not nothing or something.) If you feel a joy. If you feel something you can’t explain. (SG: Something all encompassing.) Then you know you’re on the right track. When you follow the I when you ask “Who am I?” It leads you to silence because you don’t answer. That’s the true silence. But if you’re into the occult, or you’re into channelling, or you’re into the rest of these things, if you try to sit in silence, you’ll be bombarded by voices, by things, by all kinds of nonsense and they all come from your own mind because you believe certain things. That’s why people say, “These entities have gotten hold of my body,” because they were dwelling in these things and they believe in Spirit entities. So naturally they create it in themselves, but they think they’re coming from somewhere else. SN: So when we sit in silence, I see how the thoughts arise. We should inquire, “To whom do these thoughts come?” R: Exactly, all the time. Whenever a thought comes, it’s like you have a gun, you shoot it down by self-inquiry, by asking, “To whom does it come?” That’s gone, then another thought comes. (SN: Now if we sit and the thoughts arise, but we don’t inquire is that also another practice?) That’s another practice, that works also, by just watching and by not reacting to it. But you have to be able to do that. And it’s not easy for most people. But if you can watch your thoughts they’ll just disappear by themselves, but you have to be able to be the witness, to watch. (SN: You know if the thoughts arise, rather than say, “To whom do these thoughts come?” if you say, “Who am I?” it gives you a different impression.) You can do that. It’ll change your mode of thinking. (SN: You know what I’ve noticed is that if I was doing “Who Am I?” it starts to become like a mantra.) It shouldn’t be a mantra, it’s not a mantra. (SN: Right.) SS: Do you do it fast when you do it? (R: No.) SN: Rather than to do self-inquiry through “Who am I?” If I just let the thought arise and then ask, “To whom do the thoughts come?” that gives a different practice. R: Yes it does. Whenever you inquire, “Who am I?” you just don’t repeat over and over again like a parrot, but you take a space and rest in between each one and you say, “Who am I?” then you can change it and say, “Where does the I come from?” “Who am I?” and you emphasize the I, “I,” “Who am “I,” I? Where did the I come from?” SF: Robert, or just sitting with I, does it have the same effect? R: Yes, it does. If you can just sit with “I, I.” It has the same effect as “I-am.” (SF: Or “Who am I?” too?) It has the same effect. It depends what your nature is. Everyone’s nature is different. If you repeat, “I – I,” you can do that like a mantra. You can say, “I – I, I – I,” it’s like saying, “I-am, I-am, I Am That I Am,” that you can do like a mantra. SN: What is “I – I?” (R: I am that I am, I am I) I am I, okay thank you. SF: Even though it has a mantric appearance it’s more or less an equivalent to inquiry? R: It’s inquiry yes. The I comes to pass. It comes out. It’s a very good thing to do. Do whatever you have to do, but make your life simple do not make it complicated. In other words don’t say, “I’ve got to do this by 5 o’clock tonight.” Take your time relax. Forget about time. Forget about days. Forget about lifetimes. Just do what you have to do and let nature take it’s course. Everything will happen like it’s supposed to. SB: When I inquire it always leads me back to bare consciousness. Which is like an impersonal mystery. R: That’s good too. As long as you think it’s an impersonal mystery then something is working deep within yourself and something will answer the call and you’ll be told what the mystery is, but don’t try to figure it out. (SB: It’s like not knowing anything at all and not being anything, no space, spacelessness, no dimension.) How do you feel? (SB: The feeling of it is a lovely feeling.) Then it’s good. (SB: A joy probably.) Then keep it up, something will give. (SB: It feels like being in love with Self.) That’s a good feeling. SG: I had a similar feeling I guess it was two Saturdays ago. An amazing peace, it wasn’t like I had explosions or anything, it was just so firm that everything just contracted upon itself. There was no…I feel it was stronger. R: Well how did you feel after? (SG: I don’t know when it ended?) See when you have these feelings and they’re real feelings they have an effect on your humanhood. (SG: Yeah, I didn’t feel emotional, I felt very peaceful. It’s hard to say.) Yes. (SG: Love for everything, but there was no need for love for everything you know because it was there.) You have a feeling of immortality. (SG: Yeah.) You just know that all is well. (SG: Yeah.) See the funny thing about this is enlightenment doesn’t make you a soothsayer or magician. You do not perform occult acts. When I was with Ramana Maharshi, I remember people used to come up and look at him and they used to look at me and say, “He’s just a funny old man, I get nothing out of him, who’s he?” and they’d go away. So you see, people who appreciate Sages like that and who know where they’re coming from, they would’ve had to have done something to themselves for many years before. Many life times. Otherwise they just can’t get it, or you will not understand what it’s all about because you’re looking for something and there’s absolutely nothing to look for because everything is. All is well. SS: Is that why some people aren’t interested in spiritual paths? I see people getting married, their babies getting baptized and they seem well and happy and they don’t have problems or any other things wrong, or maybe they’re already there. (laughs) R: Well that has to do with karma. See you’re speaking on a human level. (SS: Yeah because they don’t seem interested in this kind of stuff at all.) Everybody who experiences human happiness will have to experience human unhappiness. They’re two sides of the same coin. (SS: Maybe not even in this lifetime?) Maybe not, but it’s not for us to judge it’s for us to be. See we learn to leave the world alone because the world is so strong, it’ll grab you, it’ll fool you, it’ll say look at this person, look at that person, they’re fine they’re like this, they’re like that, they’re not doing what you’re doing. But don’t fall for that, they’ve got their own problems. SS: I went to dinner with a friend about six months ago and she kept “lets get together for dinner,” I kept having to say, “Oh well this is not a good time,” we finally went. After the first five or ten minutes I didn’t have anything to say, I felt very uncomfortable being there because everything we said was more like chit chat, it didn’t mean anything. I guess these things just fall away. R: Do not concern yourself with why things happen to you. SS: It bothered me that I was there and couldn’t wait to get home. I’ll have more excuses next time because I couldn’t feel any reason to get together really. R: Again, do not make your life complicated, keep your life simple. Try to be by yourself. Associate with those people who think like you. Try to keep yourself happy and peaceful. Don’t make your life too complicated with people or places. SS: Not too many people in Orange County that are into this. I hope you guys are familiar with Orange County but it’s pretty conservative. I guess there’s people out there. R: If you’re doing the right thing, the right thing will happen. (SS: So those people will meet up with people.) Like begets like. So don’t criticize yourself. Do not look for anything, just be your Self. Be natural, be yourself, be simple, be spontaneous, be happy. Do not look for things to complicate your life. (SS: Kind of child-like in a sense?) Yes, simple. Another thing Ramana used to do. People used to tell him that were some intellectuals coming to see you, some Pundits. Who are coming to have a discourse with you about the religion, about hinduism, about this, about that. So he used to go outside of his place and he always wore loin cloths. And he would rub himself with mud and become filthy and sit in the mud. And when they’d come by they would say, “Where does the Sage live?” and he would say, “he’s gone, he doesn’t live here anymore,” and then they would inquire up the hill and they would say, “you just passed him sitting in the mud.” (laughter) And they would become disillusioned and go away. There was no time to argue. Nobody is trying to prove anything. Nobody is better than anybody else. Simplicity is the key. Do not try to convert anybody, be yourself and then they’ll ask you, “How come you’re like that, I want to find out,” then you can tell them. Become a living example and people will follow you. Play some more music. (tape break then Robert continues after the music played) This is your class. SM: How long were you in India with Ramana Maharshi and when did you receive your enlightenment? If you want to talk about it? R: It’s a long story, but I was with Ramana Maharshi for two years before he died, 1948 to 1950 and I don’t know anything about enlightenment. I’ve always been this way. Except what I’ve read in books when I was a teenager that that’s what is called selfrealization. (laughs) SS: Did you talk about realization during the time you were with Ramana? R: I went to see him because he felt like I did. He had the same experiences. SS: You’ve had this since you were a child? Yes. SB: A few weeks ago Robert, you said when you were with Ramana and you had a profound experience. R: Oh of course, but it wasn’t an experience that I didn’t have before. Just sitting there, things happen. (SB: Did it become permanent at that time?) No it was always permanent. It was just – when you’re with somebody like that, you just merge into them and you get an extra dose of bliss. (laughs) (SB: How many years were you with him?) Two years. (SB: Two years you were in his presence?) Yeah, not all the time. That was my main headquarters, but I went to different places and came back. SB: You said you went to see Amanda Mai Ma. Was she a great realized person? R: Oh yes, she was a great person. She was like Ramana, female version. I know you like to hear stories about those things, but I purposely cut it short because you get enthralled with the story and you forget about your Self. It’s important to remember that you are Ramana. What he had you have, and to awaken yourself to that fact, through selfinquiry. SB: You know I was thinking just now, Robert. This whole process is similar to, like a caterpillar shedding its caterpillarness and becoming a butterfly. (R: You can say that.) You know it’s just like here we are as mind, my self, this ego self and this you know. Becoming more of consciousness and less of mind and it’s like becoming a whole different animal like… (R: That’s a good analogy.) And yet we were that all the time, the potential of that and we weren’t. We were being the mechanism, the apparatus mind, instead of being the consciousness which we really really were. It’s just the other way around. We were animating and acting like the mind and forgetting about the consciousness which is our real life and now we’re just putting the mind aside and using it only when we need it and abiding in the consciousness and then something magical happens, then we become the butterfly, like in a whole different dimension. R: Yes. When we’re babies, we’re free and we actually have a semblance of selfrealization, when we’re a little baby. But then we become brainwashed by our parents and then by our schools and our churches and our environment and here we are, totally brain washed into believing we’re something we’re not. SN: Robert have you seen this type of metamorphosis happening to people along the way? R: Yes I have. Quite a few, not quite a few but quite a few. (SN: Was it a permanent thing?) Oh it’s a permanent thing. When this affects you it’s like contagious. It affects you permanently and then everybody else is affected too. But it doesn’t come and go. It’s something that stays all the time. If it comes and goes, it’s not that, it’s something else. (SN: And then these people go on and live their everyday lives?) Yes. The body does what it came here to do. Again that’s something that people still can’t understand. They can’t understand that for a self-realized person, why they would do this or do that, or act like an ordinary human being. But the fact is, that’s how you see it. That’s not what I see, that’s what you see. Like when Ramana was dying he was laughing and his disciples were crying, they said, “Master don’t leave us, we’ve seen you heal other people, just by them being in your presence, why can’t you heal yourself? Don’t go away,” and he said, “you fools what did I teach you? Where can I go? There’s nowhere to go. I will always be here.” He saw something else. He was living in the world, but he saw reality. He saw himself as eternal bliss, as absolute reality and he was not dying. But those people who are not enlightened see death and that’s the difficult part to comprehend. Try to remember that everything that you see with your eyes is erroneous and false. That’s why when someone who wants to argue with me about it, I always say, “The sky is blue.” Because in truth there’s no sky and there’s no blue. It’s an optical illusion. That’s how our life is, it’s an optical illusion, it does not exist the way it appears to and when we wake up, we’ll see that. SS: You said we can do self-inquiry when we’re driving anyway? (R: Yes you can.) But if you want to make it more of a habit if it’s fairly new, I mean I’ve meditated but self-inquiry feels different to me than when I’ve meditated because I kind of get relaxed or something. Is there a specific amount of time that you would recommend doing it? R: If you want a time, you can use two hours in the morning before you get up, just like If you get up at seven, get up at five. (SS: Before you do anything?) When it’s quiet in your home and you’re not disturbed. Sit by yourself. And do it two hours before you go to sleep, sit by yourself, if you need a time. But make it go on, all during the day. What I’m going to do, is I’m going to give you a mantra to help you out. This is a self-inquiry mantra and you can alternate with this and everything else you do. Now the way you’re going to use this is this way. Whenever something is bothering you, whenever you feel out of sorts, whenever you feel something is wrong, stop thinking of your problem and do the mantra. Do it before falling asleep and as soon as you get up in the morning. This will help tremendously. You can interchange this with the four principles. When you get tired of thinking of the four principles, you can do this mantra. And it’s very powerful and it works wonders. It starts with your breathing, here’s what you do. You inhale and you say, “Who am I?” and before you exhale you say, “I am He,” then you exhale and you say, “I am not the body.” You inhale and you say, “Who am I?” before you exhale you say, “I am He,” before you exhale you say, “I am not the body.” Simple. Any questions about that? (tape break then student asks question) SS: Go through the principles, the four principles first that you gave? R: You can interchange. If you get tired of the four principles and the three vessels, use the mantra. (SS: When you say use the four principles you mean recall them to mind observe them and be silent?) Yes, but when you get tired of doing that use the mantra, or during the day you can use the mantra, or whatever you like whatever is easier for you. So you’ve got something to do and something to use all the time. That’s important, to keep your mind busy. SM: Would you say it again? R: You inhale you say, “Who am I?” as you hold your breath you say, “I am He” and you exhale and you say, “I am not the body.” It’s very simple, but very powerful. Things will begin to happen if you do this. (SN: This shouldn’t replace self-inquiry?) No. What I’m trying to do is to give you ammunition. So you can handle every situation that comes along. (laughs) SB: So you do this when you’re like disturbed and your mind is racing, angry? (R: Yes.) SN: When you can’t do self-inquiry. (R: Yes.) SG: It shouldn’t be in place of, because some people could be attached to the mantra. R: It won’t do you any harm. It’ll do you good. It’s good to be attached to it. Because you’re stating the truth. (SS: It’s okay to be attached to that mantra?) Yes. As a matter of fact let’s do it right now. Make yourself comfortable and you’ll see how good you feel. You can close your eyes if you like. First relax yourself by taking ten deep breaths, diaphragmatic breaths, ten deep breathing breaths, for relaxation. (silence) Now ask the question, inhale and say, “Who am I?” hold it and say, “I am He,” exhale and say, “I am not the body.” “Who am I, I am He, I am not the body.” If thoughts interfere, just ignore your thoughts and go right back to it again. (silence) Did anything interesting happen to anybody? This is very powerful stuff. SM: Really deep energy. R: Did your thoughts bother you and interfere? (SM: Definitely.) Your thoughts are very powerful. They don’t want to be left out. So they’re going to butt in and you’ll start thinking about dinner or what you’re going to wear tomorrow or whatever. When that happens don’t fight, but simply in a gentle way go back to the mantra and keep on doing it again and again and the thoughts will come less and less. This makes you one pointed. SG: When I was doing it, it dissolved after a while. (R: And what happened?) Everything was gone. (R: How did you feel?) Oh it was great, I mean, it was great, it wasn’t an experience per se, it was just a very deep state with nothing. A very peaceful state. R: It affects different people differently, but that’s good. (SG: Very peaceful state, I wanted to stay longer. (laughs) There was no thought.) Yes, all these things bring you to no thought to mindfulness. (SG: Yeah.) Effortlessly, there’s no fighting, no shoving. You simply let it happen by itself. SS: I felt calm and then I did the self-inquiry and then I felt that I was gone and I jolted like this because I started to fall asleep. (laughs) (R: Umm. It’s good for your body.) It frightened me at first but then as soon as I caught myself I just went back to it. R: It will make you peaceful and calm. (tape ends)